Songs for this chapter: The Greatest Story Never Told (Series 4), This is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home (Series 3) (Yes I'm reusing some songs because they were just that good)

The Time of the Draft

This time he wasn't woken by her screams. Instead it was a strangled, breathy shout, barely more than a cough. Yet the sound still managed to carry through three walls and his closed door to assault his ears. He sighed and sat up. She might drift back to sleep before dawn came but he couldn't. "At least she has stopped crying every time…" He muttered to himself as he pulled his clothes on. Over the years, she'd gotten better at controlling her human impulses and actions. Writing in that damn book so much must have helped.

He pushed open her door and walked softly up to her bedside, listening to her breathing. It was deep but not quite as slow as he was hoping for. Her hair was clinging to the pillow at odd angles. The sheets were tangled around her form, like she had been writhing in her sleep. Her forehead was creased and he could see the tension in her shoulders and neck. He gently placed two fingers on the temple closest to him and closed his eyes. A gentle mental push into her mind was all it took to make her relax completely and fall back into a deep sleep. Her mental blockade flowed obediently back into place as its Architect finished his adjustments and left her to sleep.

He entered his workshop and the lights sprang to life, illuminating the plans he'd left spread on his desk last night. He smiled. One good thing about her waking him up early was it gave him time to work on her present. He pulled the blueprints towards him.

A sonic pen… He had thought of it only last week. A sonic pen with a single hueon particle for a core… The perfect gift for a young writer with so few other natural talents. Something to give her the tiniest bit of an edge over the Time Lords.

He removed his blaster from his hip and placed it on the corner of his desk so it would not get in his way and got to work.

The casing was simple enough; the most difficult part was going to be reinforcing the core so that the hueon energy wouldn't leak out. Not that it would be too difficult. Not for him anyway.

He pulled his work glasses over his eyes and set to work.

He might have finished the entire apparatus except for the fact that he didn't get more than an hour of uninterrupted work time before the knock on his door came. Sighing in frustration, he got up from his worktable and crossed to the door, ignoring the mental probe from his caller.

He yanked open the door. "Go away… I'm…" His voice trailed off as he took in the familiar face.

The caller smirked at him. "Hello soldier. How goes the day?"

He involuntarily stiffened. "General." The tall, imposing Time Lord on his doorstep didn't even wait to be invited in but rather brushed right past him and stood in the entryway.

He shut the door. "To what do I owe the honor?" He realized he was still wearing the glasses and hurriedly snatched them off his face.

The General rounded on him, his expression serious. "Let's not play games Architect. You know what brings me."

He'd been out of the army for almost a century now but when facing his former commanding officer, he still found he had to fight not to draw himself up to attention, stare straight ahead and let his mind be invaded by his commander. The result was a stiff, uneven posture that left him staring at the General's chin with an impenetrable mental blockade. "I'm afraid I don't." He said stiffly.

The General fingered the mini rifle strapped to his hip. It was a habit he often had when delivering orders. "The war is coming." He stated.

"What war?" This earned him a raised eyebrow. He shrugged. "Sorry, been a bit out of touch."

"More than a bit."

He said nothing. He just waited for the inevitable briefing that would follow.
"Davros is building an empire." The General began, folding his hands behind his back like he was addressing his battalion. "He plans to include all of Kasterborous and beyond." He looked him right in the eye. He fought to hold his gaze and his mental defenses. "We need all troops ready and able to fight."

"Those days are over for me."

The General's hand shot out suddenly. Out of instinct, his hand went to his hip only to find it empty. Of course. His blaster was still on his worktable. He grimaced as the other Time Lord's hand slammed into his throat and pushed him roughly against the wall. "You will do your duty, soldier." His commanding officer growled in his ear. "We all will. Everyone has been recalled for this fight. Even your brother."

They both turned around (although his movements were severely limited by the strangle hold on his throat) as there was the sound of a weapon being primed. The Tool's hands were shaking as she pointed the blaster at the General.

He tried to shake his head at her but the grip on his throat was too tight.

The General took the child in: her mussed hair, her eyes ringed with evidence of her insomnia, her small hands and equally small body. After a second, his eyes lit up in realization. "Ahh. This must be your….. Tool." She flinched as he said the name and the gun in her grip stopped shaking. He must have tried to probe her mind. "She's got a fire in her eyes." The soldier observed.

His heart missed a beat. Was he trying to see her future? "She can't…" He choked out around the hand clenching his vocal cords.

The General shoved him back against the wall. "She is of age, let her speak."

The grip had loosened enough that air was leaking into his throat again. "No, not her… she's only 15…"

"14…" She corrected quietly, barely keeping the tremble out of her voice.

Something in the way she said that simple word made him look at her. Really look at her. Her hair was almost halfway down her back now (she had not cut it since the camps of her past life had sheared it off). Had it really been only seven years since he'd taken her in? Here she was: a gangly, young infant "Time Lord" of 14. Right now she looked so much older, so… non-human. Usually, whenever he looked at her, he couldn't help but see the entirely-too-human bits of her that they tried so hard to squash out of her. Now, as she stood there, hair loose about her shoulders, eyes locked on her opponent, gun clenched comfortably in her grip, all he saw was Time Lord. She could have been seven hundred and even he wouldn't have known any better.

But he couldn't let her fight a war.

As gently as he could, he reached out and shifted her mental blockade. She went rigid but remained standing. He closed his eyes in apprehension. Then he removed it completely. She made a tiny little gasping sound and he opened his eyes.

He watched in fascination as her pupils dilated completely but she remained standing. A bead of sweat ran down her face but she still did not move. The blaster in her grip didn't tremble at all. She had been without protection for almost a full minute.

He caught the General's eye, drawing the curious eyes away from the Tool's discomfort. "Fine. I shall return to fight. But she stays with me. She is my Tool. She will not leave my side."

The General held his gaze and slowly released his grip. "So be it." He let go and stepped back. The Architect rubbed the sore spots on his throat.

"You will hear from us by the end of the month with your orders for training camp." The General instructed, fingering his gun again. "Until then, go nowhere, prepare yourself and whatever you will need." He shot a look at the child who was still aiming a blaster at him. "And keep your… Tool, out of trouble."

He nodded and with a single thought, slid her mental protection back into place. She drew a sharp breath and the blaster clattered to the floor as she clutched at her head.

He dared to smile at his commanding officer. "She won't go far I promise you."

The General nodded and turned to go.

"One more thing." He said, turning back briefly. "We're confiscating your TARDIS."

The smile melted off his face. "What?"

"It's the law. Just as all Time Lords are being recalled to fight, so are all their travel-machines being outfitted for war."

They couldn't… His TARDIS was the only way he had survived during his previous service. "But it's not a war model, not anymore…" He protested.

The General shook his head in disbelief. "Amazing. Even in this body. You still blink twice before you lie." Then he turned and left.

The sound of her heavy breathing woke him this time. He rolled out of bed with a groan. "Knew I'd pay for that mind tampering eventually…" He muttered as he pulled his shirt on and stumbled down the hall to her room.

The door was open. She was not inside. Frowning, he followed the sounds of her breathing into the sitting room and leaned against the door frame to watch.

The chairs and furniture had all been pushed haphazardly aside. The girl who had once been called Ksenia was alone in the center of the cleared space. She lowered herself downward until the necklace clinked against the floor. Then laboriously, she tried to straighten her arms again and rise back to starting position. She barely got halfway.

"What are you doing?"

She looked up. "Training." Her arms visibly shaking, she resumed the starting position.

He tried not to laugh. "You'll get plenty of that in the next few years, I can guarantee that."

She stubbornly lowered herself again. "If I'm going to be out there… by your side… I can't… I can't be a burden…" A drop of sweat rolled off the end of her nose as she rose again. Her breathing was incredibly labored. She started to lower herself again. "I've got to… I've got to…" She gasped suddenly.

He was at her side before she hit the floor. "Hold on… hang in there you trooper…" He grabbed for her temples as she began to thrash and scream. He entered her mind.

And nearly backed out again. Her head was on fire, her thoughts falling apart as soon as they formed. He reached for his blockade, intending to slide it back into place.

He frowned. It was already in place. The mental blockade wasn't working at all.

She wailed like she was being torn to pieces. Frantically, he scrambled to set up a scaffold, some kind of new support that would bridge the sudden hole between her thoughts and the blockade. "Hold on… hold on…" He gnawed on the corner of his lip as he began the process. Slow… too slow…

He needed something to ground her. Something for her scattered thoughts to cling to while he worked. Reaching into his own vast mind, he pulled the memory forward and forced it upon her:

"Are you sure this thing is going to work?"

He finished adjusting the wing and brandished his sonic screwdriver at her. "Why do you ask? Don't you trust me and my genius?"

She was silent but the corner of her mouth twitched.

He glared at her then ducked back under the wing and tightened the strap around her middle.

She glanced out, over the top of the tall cliff. They were hidden deep among the Mountains of Solace and Solitude. "Didn't a human try to build something like this once?"

He finished adjusting the joint he was working on before he answered. "Yes. What's your point?"

She swallowed hard. "Didn't it fail?"

"Yes, but that's because he was a human." He hid his smile behind the opposite wing as she tried to glare at him. "And when you're building a flying contraption," he continued, sonicing a gear a little tighter "the logical and smart thing to do is to build rockets into it to generate enough thrust to keep the wearer airborne."

He tightened the strap around her left wrist and tapped her shoulder. She gave the wings an experimental flap. They held together flawlessly and moved effortlessly. "But he didn't have rockets." She pointed out, lowering her arms.

Satisfied with his work, he stood up and tucked his screwdriver away. "Exactly." He moved to stand behind her, looking out over the red mountains. "Now, remember the most important thing."

She looked up at him. "What's that?"

He gave her a hard push off the edge. "Don't damage the mechanism!" He called after her.

He ended the memory and removed himself from her mind. The Tool moaned and curled into a ball as her spasm passed.

He sat back on his heels, breathing a little heavily. The last time he'd done that was when he had first created the blockade. Unfortunately, the memory he'd had to use that time was the one of when they'd met. She had cried for almost a week afterwards as a result.

Her years under his tutelage as his apprentice/test subject/project had given her some muscle and agility. He'd thought he'd all but solved the issue of her collapsing from her mental trauma due to years of conditioning and an intricate mental blockade deep in her subconscious. And today she'd managed to hold it for a full two minutes with no help whatsoever.

But she was still a poor excuse for a Time Lord. Her mind still collapsed if she wasn't in full control or if she was under too much stress. Her notebook was still full of the things her weak mind could not contain. Some days, the ink barely dried on one note before she was scribbling another.

She dreamed of higher learning, of attending the Gallifrey College of Science and Engineering. But of course there was no way that could happen. It was too risky and now with the war, it would be impossible.

The Tool slowly uncurled herself and sat up, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry…" She whispered.

He sighed. "Being on the battlefield is going to be very stressful, not to mention dangerous. You're going to collapse more often and if you do, it's far more likely you'll die. And not just from the mental trauma." He slid down to sit opposite her. "Can you really handle all that?"

She was quiet for a long time. "So why?" She finally asked. "Why get me out there at all?"

He propped his elbow up on his knee. "It was the only way. They're pulling everyone for this war. They don't know that you can't regenerate like all the others. They'll send you into war to die, not realizing that for you, it's not a choice."

She drew her knees into her chest, her back to the window. Her wide unfathomable eyes seemed to glow in the half-light as they searched him for help. "So what do we do?"

He looked away from her. He didn't have an answer. Outside the window, the telltale glow of Gallifrey's first sunrise had appeared. After a few minutes, he realized he was staring at the empty spot on the wall. His jaw clenched.

"Do you know how I survived 300 tours of duty?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shake her head.

He turned back to her, his eyes blazing. "I was clever. I stayed out of danger. I didn't do anything stupid. And I followed orders to the letter." The Tool looked him right in the eye. He could see the fire in her too. She wasn't afraid of him. She wasn't a coward. He stood up and looked down at her. "Can you do that?"

She nodded. "I will." She rose to her feet just as the first sun poked its head over the horizon. He was momentarily blinded as the light set fire to her skinny frame, making it seem like she was glowing, alive with the power, grace and surety of a Time Lord. She could have been regenerating and he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

It took him a few seconds to realize she had started talking again.

"It's funny… I wrote about this."

He blinked to clear both his thoughts and his vision. "About what?"

She rubbed her thumb against the necklace, a distant look in her eye. "About a war… a great sacrifice and the man who would end it…" She looked out of the window at the rising sun, her brow creased with a frown.

He tried to remember to breathe. "When did you write this?" He asked in a low voice.

It was like she was entering some kind of trance. She hardly seemed aware of him. "It was the first thing I ever wrote." She plucked the journal from the edge of the chair closest to her, not taking her eyes from the sun. "They're the words I see every night in my dreams, the message that dances across my vision whenever I close my eyes…"

She cracked open the cover and read:

"The war is coming…. All will fight…. The broken clock….. the burning night… Metal seeks to Master Time… Two great races, face to face…. The coward is their saving grace…. It all depends on number 9… A Doctor in the sky… a storm is coming, brewing and breaking.

The lock will break.

Time will end."

She closed the book. The second sun appeared on the edge of the horizon. "What does it mean?"

He said nothing.

I didn't exactly mean for the Tool's prophecy to rhyme at the beginning. It just kind of started to. Please don't try to read into it or look for some complicated rhyme scheme. Seriously, I'm awful at poetry; you will just be wasting your time.